Front strut mount

[ZetaTre]

After 61K miles ZetaQuattro cought the infamus front strut mount failure...

Here's some pix of the faild passenger side:

Here's the driver side:

I'm gonna give a call to my dealer on Monday and see if they'll do it on goodwill.

If not, I guess I have a project to work on. What would you guys recommand to upgrade it?

 

[Shipkiller]

Yep, same problem I had last year.

http://www.z4-forum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=2733&hilit=strut

The first one I did took 90min to pull and replace and reinstall. The second strut took about 35 mins to complete.

Don't mind the old wheels... They looked like a**

 

[ZetaTre]

Thanks Shipkiller. I was reading you threads actually and had a couple of questions:

1) When you say that cars after 03/03 have a diffrent p/n could it be because BMW issued a new part less likely to fail?

2) the parts you link to TunerMotorsport appear to reinforce the strut tower, so they shouldn't improve the strut mount. Is that right?

 

[Shipkiller]

Not sure about No.1 but it seems a reasonable theory.

You are correct about No.2. But I have seen upgraded stut mounts for about the same price out on the net. It seems that if you put a strut brace on the car, it seems to reduce or prevent this mushrooming that happens on the E46/Z4 upper strut mount.

The Meyle Strut mounts seem to be a better replacement part than OEM if you are stressing the car alot.

http://www.meyle.com/html/techtips/index.php?manufacturer=BMW
http://www.meyle.com/html/uploads/techtips/StrutMount_BMW_09.02_EN.pdf

I wanted to get the car back on the road ASAP so I bought the OEM ones from the Dealer, which had them in stock, and I put a strut tower brace on the car.